Assign External Users full Office 365 Licenses?

[Jason Armenise]

Is it possible to assign a license of Office 365 to an external user?  It is possible within the Office admin center and the AAD admin portal to assign a 'guest' a license.  However while it does assign them a license it appears they aren't able to use that license.  I've tried this with a guest authenticated through MSA and a guest from another valid AAD tenant (neither had their own Office 365 license).  

So is it possible to assign the license to an external user have them use the license?  I suspect no, but then why does it support assigning those licenses in both Office Admin Center and AAD Portal?  

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jason Armenise

Thanks for the question! Unfortunately, no. See article

https://www.petri.com/adding-subscription-external-office-365-user

You can physically assign a licence to an external user but it’s not supported. You will want to refer to the official docs on adding B2B users/guests

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/b2b/add-users-administrator

Hope that answers your question!

Best, Chris

[#3]

Why do you want to assign a license? Technically it is possible, you can even create a mailbox for such users, but you have to play with the account properties a bit. Or you can make it a GA for that matter.

[#4]

@Christopher Hoard 

Thank you!  That's what I assumed, just wanted to know if it was a bug or a not.  Cheers!

[#5]

Thanks Christopher! To confirm, can you use Office Admin and AAD Portal to assign ANY usable license to an external user? E.g. Teams?

[#6]

No problem! I am not aware of any limits, but unfortunately - and returning to the original point above - it isn’t officially supported so I would not be surprised if you ran into an issue trying to assign a particular licence to an external user in terms of applying the licence or functionality

Best, Chris